How is it possible to raid without retreat ability?

[Gandalph]

I will start by saying that I am neither for or against the idea of retreat.

In several of the Star Wars games I have played, impulse engines are used in tactical combat and if you wanted to retreat you had to go to the edge of the combat grid (IIRC with a movement penalty) and wait a turn or two while your warp engines warmed up. This made you vulnerable to attack and sometimes your warp capability would be knocked out so you would then be unable to leave the combat grid. As you were retreating, you still had the ability to fire, as long as your weapons were still intact. If you managed to make it out of combat, you would only end up 1 square away from the enemy on the system map and could still be attacked if the enemy still had movement. This style makes total sense to me and IMHO would add to the game play experience.

[Baron Munchausen]

When we asked for retreat in the past, the reason we were given for its removal was pretty much what has been discussed. Running down a colony ship was tedious. Strategic movement after combat made it possible to cheat in too many ways. etc. But getting pinned in an invisible corner is also a pain in the arse. I guess there's no single solution to the problem without some sort of complex 'scaling' of the game like Starfire uses. But that would be awfully complicated to program.

[ June 25, 2002, 16:56: Message edited by: Baron Munchausen ]

[Silent Sorrow]

Originally posted by Puke:
i.e., can slower ships retreat from faster ones? if a force is of mixed ships, will only the faster ships be able to run? what becomes of ships of the same speed? is a fighting withdrawl being made, or is the fleet being routed? if a fighting withdrawl, do they inflict damage as they flee? do they take any? do they take more if its a route? how is a route determined? where do they flee to? what if they dont have any movement left?

Why do you need to get into any of this? Why not just abstract it as in MOO2? If you choose to retreat you select "options/retreat" and your ships begin to move to the opposite edge or whatever--and sure, they can be taking damage as they flee. Then, on the next turn the two opposing fleets are still in the same space. The originally attacking fleet may choose to continue to flee on the galactic map (and be chased, or not chased, by the defending fleet).

while most, if not all and possibly more, of those questions can be answered, you do see how it could be problematic to program, and was perhaps left out of the initial release do the the extra time designing and testing that it would have caused.

Though I'm no programmer I don't see how what I described would be difficult to program since it would not actually involve any additional programming beyond adding an option to the options menu.

[geoschmo]

[quote]Originally posted by Silent Sorrow:

Why do you need to get into any of this? Why not just abstract it as in MOO2? If you choose to retreat you select "options/retreat"<snip>Though I'm no programmer I don't see how what I described would be difficult to program since it would not actually involve any additional programming beyond adding an option to the options menu.

I am not an auto mechanic, but I know it takes more than taping a button to the dash board to add cruise control to my car.

What you are missing Slient Sorrow is that the combat engine in SEIV was designed around strategic combat. IIRC the designer originally intend not to even have tactical combat. It was added in after considerable amount of requests from members of the beta team.

All of the factors Puke mentions are nessecary to determine for retreat to be an option in strategic combat, because you cannot simply give the ship a retreat order as you suggest. You must give them a strategy and a method of detemining what conditions to retreat under, and what conditions to persue a retreating ship under. For that matter, even under tactical combat you have to figure out these things to give the AI the ability to make these decisions.

I suppose that retreat could simply be added for tactical combat only, but it's simply not been a priority of the designer. Whether that is because of the complexity in programming all these factors, or just a lack of compelling need for it I don't know.

Geoschmo

[ June 25, 2002, 17:48: Message edited by: geoschmo ]

[LGM]

Retreat would have to be carefully implemented so that warp point defenses could not be evaded too easily with speed 11+ ships (6+ tactical).

As for chasing single ships, if retreating was implemented, emergency propulsion would be a nice thing to have for getting away or for chasing. Too bad it does not work on fleets.

One thing that would really make raiding more effective would be concealment and more limited spotting of enemy ships. Add one level to the cloaking level of each ship for each square you are away from it. Problem with that is it would cause players to add a survelliance satellite to every square to detect intruders. I do not like the amount of micromanagement that would add to the game.

It would be nice if tractor beams could prevent an enemy from leaving a strategic square. (They cannot leave if they do not make it to the edge in combat). Along the same lines, it would be nice if you could evade pursuing ships by using a repulsor beam.

Personally, I think that leaving retreat out would be simpler as there are other things Aaron could add that would be more straight forward and would add to the game. There are lots of considerations for handling retreats. If it is implemented, it would be nice to make in a game option rather than a fixed change to the game.

A retreat component is hoaky in my opinion.

[Zarix]

The whole retreat thing is very complicated. For example if a fleets retreats do they end up in the same sector or is the fleet disbanded?

Besides, isn't the simultaneos turns supposed to work so that if an attacker can catch the defending ship the attacker has to be faster or their paths has to cross so that the defender has to make a big turn to escape. In reality the attacker would get very close to the defender and that applies to both cases.

I don't think that adding retreat to SE4 is a good idea.